


I Told You

by Shrinkadink



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shrinkadink/pseuds/Shrinkadink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders has a stalker, but no one takes it seriously until it's too late. Fill for a prompt on Almighty Kink, prompt in notes at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Told You

When Anders’ stalker first appears, no one takes it seriously, not even Anders.  
  
It’s not the first time Anders has had a tag along, in fact they’re hard pressed to think of a time when he wasn’t ducking and diving to avoid a poor soul who had yet to realise that their ‘special night with Anders’ would not be a repeat performance.  
  
It doesn’t matter that Anders swears blind that he’s never slept with this person. 'Sure you haven’t' is their response. It doesn’t even matter that Anders’ stalker is male, they all know that Anders swings both ways. It’s like the world’s worst kept secret.  
  
But then days turn to weeks and Anders starts getting things left in his mail box, flowers and cards slipped under the door of his apartment and office.  
  
“Just tell them to stop,” Dawn tells him as she sniffs delicately at a red rose.  
  
“I have!” Anders exclaims, he looks frazzled and keeps running his hands through his hair. Dawn looks down at the bouquet, red roses and white lilies and a little teddy bear hugging a big red heart. “They’re really pretty,” she coos as she pokes the teddy’s nose. “Can I keep them?”  
  
“Whatever,” Anders says. “Just get them out of my sight.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Do you know who it is?” Axl asks one day as he helps Anders clean the latest mess. It looks like cupid exploded in his hallway with petals and confetti littering the stairs and a great big red heart spray painted on his front door.  
  
“No— yes. Maybe, I don’t know. I think he was a courier from the company we used to use.”  
  
“A courier, hey?” Axl raises a salacious eyebrow. “Wow Anders, slumming it a little aren’t you?”  
  
Anders’ face goes as red as the heart on his door. “I told you,” he grinds out. “I. Haven’t. Slept. With. Him.”  
  
“Whatever,” Axl says. “I don’t care, I’m not judging. Just maybe call Ty next time you need help cleaning up, these fumes are going to my head.”  
  
Anders glares and scrubs savagely at the heart, smearing the paint until the lather turns pink and frothy.

 

* * *

 

“Christ Anders, this is getting ridiculous. What the hell did you do to him?”  
  
Anders looks askance at Ty because really? Really?  
  
“What I did to him?” he sputters. “I’m sorry, have you seen my car?”  
  
Of course Ty’s seen his car. They’re looking at his car. The tires are flat, each one very neatly and carefully slashed. Tucked under the wipers is a note. 'Stop ignoring me.'  
  
Ty shakes his head. He digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone and stabs in Axl’s number.  
  
“What’re you doing?” Anders asks.  
  
“Well you can’t exactly give me a lift now, can you? Dawn’s expecting me.”  
  
“Fuck…” Anders throws his head back in frustration.  
  
When Axl pulls up Ty glances at Anders who’s sitting on the curb, glowering at the both of them. “Look I’ll come back and help you clean it up after, ok?”  
  
“Sure. Don’t want to keep Dawn waiting.”  
  
“Anders don’t be a brat,” Ty snaps. “Besides…”  
  
Anders sits and waits…  
  
“It is kind of your fault, isn’t it.”  
  
…there it is.  
  


* * *

  
  
Olaf doesn’t care. Olaf is stoned and a little bit drunk and just finds the whole thing hilarious.  
  
“Just fuck the guy already,” he says and his voice is strained around the blunt. “If you really want him to stop that’s obviously what he wants.”  
  
“I’m not going to—“ Anders can’t even bring himself to finish. He’s tired of this. Tired of his family not listening to him. Tired of glancing over his shoulder every second. Tired of waking up in the middle of the night with this feeling, this certainty, that there’s someone in the room with him, watching him.  
  
He’s tired and scared and pissed off.  
  
“Just forget it,” he snaps and storms out. He can hear Olaf and Stacey’s giggles drifting after him.  
  
“Someone’s a bit touchy!” he hears Stacey say. And then Olaf’s turning it into an innuendo and Anders is certain that he hates the both of them.

 

* * *

 

Anders has never begged before. But he’s begging now.  
  
“Please Mike, just let me stay here tonight, just for tonight.”  
  
Mike peers blearily at Anders. He’s drunk and his vision is swaying sickeningly. Valerie sent him photos of the baby today. She thought it would be a means of burying the hatchet. It wasn’t. Now Mike feels as bad as ever. Worse even. Michele’s out on nightshift and he wants nothing more than to drink the night into oblivion.  
  
And now Anders is here messing it up again. Anders, always Anders.  
  
“Fuck off,” Mike says and swings the door shut. Anders’ foot blocks its path. He curses and flinches and Mike thinks that had to have hurt.  
  
“Please, Mike,” Anders says desperately. He looks frightened which is ridiculous because when does Anders ever get scared. “I can’t go home tonight, I need you.”  
  
That hits Mike like a bullet, it picks at the scab of an ugly festering wound that he’s never let fully heal. Everyone needs a piece of Mike, everyone. And he’s always given, every last bit of himself. Well not any more.  
  
“Anders, I don’t give a shit what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into. Be a man for once and face it.”  
  
Maybe if Mike had seen the look on Anders’ face it would have stopped him. It’s the look of someone young and broken, it’s the look of Anders before he got his powers, an Anders Mike had always thought forgotten.  
  
But he doesn’t. He swings the door shut and locks Anders out of his life.  
  


* * *

  
  
The phone is shrill and unforgiving and wakes Mike with a start. He feels terrible and waves his hand around blindly until he can find it.  
  
“What?” he snaps into the receiver. His voice is cracked and hoarse. He feels like he’s died twice over.  
  
“Good morning to you too,” Michele says on the other line, but her voice is strange. It’s gentle, it doesn’t fit her barb, it doesn’t fit Michele.  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
“Eight thirty.”  
  
“Fuck.” Mike groans. He rolls onto his back and squints at the ceiling.  
  
“Mike, it’s Anders,” Michele is saying.  
  
“What about Anders?”  
  
“He’s at the hospital. You need to come here, Mike. Now.”

 

* * *

 

It’s the waiting that’s the worst. Mike doesn’t care to think about how often he’s played this scene out. Too often to stay sane.  
  
He tenses every time he hears footsteps. No one’s telling him anything. There’s uniformed police hovering, they look serious and keep their heads ducked close together as they talk in urgent whispers. Mike can’t stop looking at them. It can’t just be a coincidence that they’re here.  
  
Finally, after what feels like hours, Michele finds him.  
  
Her eyes are wide and sad and so unlike Michele. He hates seeing it.  
  
“Just tell me what happened.”  
  
“He was assaulted last night. Dawn found him this morning when she was opening the office.”  
  
“Who did it?”  
  
Mike can feel anger rising, a slow, ugly coil in his gut that’s growing and seething. No one touches his family, even if it’s Anders. Especially if it’s Anders.  
  
“That’s why the police are here, they’re trying to find out. Mike…” Michele hesitates and Mike realises there’s something else. Her hand is on his arm and she’s trying to guide him into the seat, or hold him back, he’s not quite certain which.  
  
“What,” Mike hisses. “What is it?”  
  
Michele’s blue eyes glance at the police then back at Mike.  
  
“They want to use a rape kit.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Mike feels sick. He knows what it means. Knows exactly what it damn well means. It’s too much, he can’t handle it. He sinks down and Michele guides him into the hard plastic chair. He thinks of Anders last night. Pleading with him, begging him not to leave him alone.  
  
It’s Mike’s fault. He did this. Anders is in here… Anders was raped because Mike let him down.  
  
“I need to see him. Let me see him.”  
  
“Not yet. The doctor’s with him now. But when he’s finished, I’ll take you through.”

 

* * *

 

Each footfall takes Mike closer to Anders’ room; each footfall sends more dread into his mind, weighing his limbs down until they feel like lead.  
Michele’s hand is a reassuring pressure against his back, guiding him, not letting him stop.  
  
“I’ll be right outside,” Michele says. She’s quiet and kind and Mike can’t shake how unlike Michele she is right now. But then he supposes she gets it. She and Anders are a lot alike. Their power comes from human desire, to have that turned on you so violently…  
  
“Thank you,” Mike murmurs and he wants to kiss her but he can’t. Michele smiles softly, humourlessly, she understands.  
  
She opens the door for him and urges him in and then she’s gone and Mike’s alone in a room with a bed and on that bed is a shell that used to be his brother.  
  
Anders looks broken and small. Dark bruises mark and distort his cheek and creep up from the neckline of his gown. His right arm is in a brace and there’s blood still caked under his nails.  
  
He’s looking away from Mike, looking into the far corner of the room and his eyes are cold and grey and distant.  
  
He’s still Anders. Mike has to remind himself that this is still Anders.  
  
“Anders,” he says and his voice is too loud for the room. Anders flinches, but otherwise ignores him. His fingertips grip onto the blankets, twisting and worrying at the fabric.  
  
“Jesus Anders, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Dawn found me,” Anders says, his throat is tensing and bobbing, swallowing air. “She saw me. Like that.”   
  
Mike doesn’t want to think about what ‘that’ was like. How she had found Anders. How long he had been like that.  
  
“This is real, isn’t it?” Anders looks at him. His eyes are red, but dry, and so very, very dead. “It actually happened.”  
  
Mike doesn’t know how to answer. He draws up a chair and sits beside Anders, leaning into the bed but too scared to reach out and touch him. He can’t take his eyes from the bruises that creep up Anders’ neck. They look like finger marks.  
  
“Everything’s different now. There’s no taking it back.” Anders’ throat works furiously, convulsing with gulps as he reaches the edges of a very detached, very quiet hysteria.  
  
Mike wishes he could take it back. He wishes to God he could take back last night and let Anders into his home when he’d asked. Maybe they would have fought, maybe Anders would have ruined everything, but they wouldn’t be here now. Anders wouldn’t be…  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Mike says again.  
  
Anders shuts his eyes like his words hurt.  
  
“Don’t,” he says in a broken whisper. “Please.” There’s nothing poetic about Anders’ words now.   
  
He’s stripped down bare. He’s raw and he’s bleeding and he’s broken and Mike hates it so much.  
  
Mike tries to take Anders’ hand but he pulls it away.  
  
“I needed you,” Anders said, looking down at the brace on his arm. “I wish you’d said yes.”  
  
“I do too. God I wish I had.”  
  
“Fuck you, Mike.” There’s no venom in his words, no fight or accusation. A tear spills down Anders' cheek. Another one soon follows until the dam is broken and Anders is choking back sobs.  
  
Mike’s on his feet, he holds out his arms until Anders leans into them and he hugs his brother close, he hugs him so tight like he wishes he could take it all away and protect him. But it’s too late; he missed his chance to help Anders last night, too caught up in his own issues. And now he’s left with the shattered pieces of his baby brother and he has no clue how to fix him.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: so there's this kinda creepy guy following anders around (ex-boyfriend, ex-one-night-stand, complete stranger,... I don't care).  
> At first Anders tries to tell him off cause although he's not completely uninterested in guys he's really not interested in this particular one.  
> But this guy just won't leave him alone and after some time Anders gets nervous.  
> He tries to talk to his brothers and Dawn about this 'situation', but they don't really take him seriously.  
> When the time finally comes and Anders is scared shitless, because this guy just won't get it and constantly follows him and won't leave him be he goes to either Mike or Ty and practically begs them to help him somehow.  
> It's just his luck that [Johnson of your choice] has a very, very bad day and is a lot ruder and colder to Anders than intended (accusing Anders of always making everything about himself, not respecting others' problems, overreacting, being an annoying cunt,... a true frust-rant).  
> Only after Anders leaves rejectedly and a lot more quietly than expected [Johnson of your choice] realises how rude he was and decides to talk to Anders the next day, not really worrying about what Anders actually said.  
> So it's quite a shock when Michelle calls the next morning to tell the perplex [Johnson of your choice] that Anders is at the hospital. Apparently this creepy guy finally had enough of Anders constant rejection and assaulted him. Cue major guilt and brotherly angst.  
> +10 if Dawn is the one to find Anders after the assault  
> +100000 if you write about what happens when Anders wakes up at the hospital


End file.
